This year’s San Diego Comic Convention marks one of the largest undertaking in Diamond Select Toys’ history! Plans for this record-breaking event include several convention exclusives, three celebrity guests, contests, a blood drive and “The Hunt” – the first ever Minimate scavenger hunt! Below is a schedule of events as well as a summary of this year’s exclusives and activities scheduled for the Diamond Select Toys booth (#2607).

Preview Night opens on Wednesday, July 27th and gives convention attendees their first chance to pick up their favorite exclusive figures. The gruesome Zombie Colonel America bust, limited to 1,000 pieces, will be on sale for $60.00 with the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Sulu figure and the Battlestar Galactica Chief Tyrol unpainted T-1 preview figure both offered in conjunction with appearances by George Takei and Aaron Douglas – the actors on whom these limited collectibles were based! The pint-sized Zombie Giant Man & Daredevil Minimates will be available for $7.00.

Star Trek legend and Heroes star George Takei, in his first San Diego Comic Con appearance, will be appearing at the DST booth on Saturday, July 28th from 10:00 am – 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm. Aaron Douglas of Battlestar Galactica fame will be signing on Friday the 27th from 10-12:30 and 2-4, on Saturday the 28th from 3-6 and on Sunday the 29th from 10-12. Celebrated artist and Dawn-creator Joseph Michael Linsner will be appearing as well. Some celebrities will be signing autographs for a fee, with discount packages containing an autograph and a pre-order for upcoming DST products.

New Force Comics (Booth #221) will offer the exclusive Dr. McCoy figure with online retailer Action Figure Xpress (Booth #4513) delivering an exclusive Scotty of their own. The exclusive Chekov will be available through Toy Rocket (Booth #5201) as their second exclusive release while DST (Booth #2607) will gives fans a chance to bring Mr. Sulu home. When purchasing all four Wrath of Khan figures from their respective retailers, con-goers will be able to have a special Star Trek card stamped at each booth. Upon completing this card, adding their information and returning it to the DST booth during the convention, fans will receive the limited Genesis Khan figure at no cost while supplies last!

This year marks the first annual “Hunt” competition – a scavenger hunt with a Minimate twist. Beginning Wednesday, July 25th and continuing through Saturday, July 28th, teams will be tasked with completing a series of objectives by taking digital photographs of their “Hunt” Minimate with a variety of convention-themed objects, places and people. The winners will be announced on Sunday, July 29th at DST’s Minimate Panel (Room 2 from 1:30-2:30) with each winning team receiving a wealth of prizes including a year’s supply of Minimates, gift cards, electronics and the rarest promotional Minimates ever produced – the Gold and Silver Spider-Man Minimates!

Diamond Select Toys has continued its support of the annual Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive, which will be held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In exchange for participating, all donors will receive a strictly limited Buffy unpainted T-1 figure or a Star Trek promotional figure! The only way to receive these rare collectibles is to roll up your sleeve and donate in an attempt to break the previous donation record set by last year’s blood drive!

ABOUT DIAMOND SELECT TOYS AND COLLECTIBLES, LLC

Diamond Select Toys and Collectibles, LLC was founded in 1999 by sister company Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. Envisioned to create unique and exciting collectibles for children and adults alike, the company has licensed a variety of pop culture properties to be turned into merchandise. With partners such as Marvel Enterprises, Capcom, Twentieth Century Fox, Hasbro and MGM, Diamond Select Toys and Collectibles produces a large range of products based on a wide variety of properties, and is headquartered in Timonium, MD. For more information, visit www.diamondselecttoys.com.

Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since.
In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features.
He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced.
In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com.
Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s
“Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on MSNBC.com,
Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official
Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many
others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows.
But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.